Sabbath

Before his murder, I had paid little attention to Charlie Kirk. I largely dismissed him as just another part of Trump world. So I was surprised to learn that the book he wrote during his final year was non-political and about the Sabbath. An excerpt was recently published at The Free Press, introduced by his wife, who wrote, "...the Sabbath is the one commandment that if you choose not to do it, you are the one who’s missing out on the blessing. Not God. Even if you don’t believe in God, you still have to rest." From "Charlie Kirk’s Final Message to America":

If taking one day off makes you anxious or ashamed, then you must ask, What am I really worshipping? No idol condemns rest like the idol of productivity. This is the golden calf of the modern age. We bow to output, chase metrics, and sacrifice our joy on the altar of efficiency.

But our identity must be anchored in something far greater than toil. Work is good—it reflects God’s creative nature. But rest is holy—it reflects His sufficiency. The same God who calls us to labor for six days also commands us to rest for one. That’s not weakness; that’s worship. ....

In Exodus, we’re called to rest because God rested. In Deuteronomy, we’re commanded to rest because only slaves work without stopping. God links Sabbath to freedom. To resist the Sabbath is, in essence, to flirt with slavery again—not the kind imposed by Pharaoh, but the kind we willingly chain ourselves to through unrelenting busyness, performance, and obligation. ....

Rest is not about perfection—it’s about intention. The goal isn’t to follow a legalistic rule, but to cultivate a sacred rhythm of freedom and trust. Sabbath is not a burden. It’s a gift. And like all good gifts, it requires humility to receive and courage to protect. ....

We’ve been conditioned to believe that our worth is tied to our availability, our output, our visibility. But Sabbath teaches us that your value is not measured by your responsiveness or productivity. It’s measured by your belonging—your rootedness in God’s love.

When you power down your phone, you’re not “missing out.” You’re entering a different kind of time, what the rabbis call “sacred time.” Time that doesn’t drain you but restores you. You begin to see things more clearly—your thoughts settle, your heart slows, your conversations deepen. And most importantly, you remember who you are apart from the endless stream of noise.

Don’t be afraid to turn off your phone. You’re not falling behind—you’re catching up to what matters most. The people in front of you. The presence of God. The peace you’ve been craving. .... (more)

Charlie Kirk and Erika Kirk, "Charlie Kirk’s Final Message to America," The Free Press, Dec. 8, 2025.

Boundaries

Foundations of Faith begins with a quotation often attributed to St Augustine: “In the essentials, unity, in the non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity.” He then lists the categories his professor used to classify doctrine:

• Essential Doctrine 
• Cardinal Doctrines 
• Non-Essentials
• Tertiary and Peripheral

What is essential, and what is not?

Essential Doctrines are doctrines that put you outside of the faith if you deny them. To reject these teachings means you are not a Christian, and the word “Heresy” is usually invoked for this category of error. Examples of essential doctrines are the deity of Jesus Christ, the Trinity, and believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. ....

Non-essential doctrines are the ones that usually distinguish denominations. The Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Pentecostals are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Still, they hold doctrines that are significant enough to impact how they worship and, therefore, opt to attend different churches. Examples of non-essential doctrines include questions such as, “Does the gifts of tongues continue or cease after the Apostles? Predestination or libertarian free will? Baptism—infant or believers? Covenant theology or dispensational? And questions surrounding the rapture. These can significantly impact our worship, but the wrong answers to these questions rarely put us outside of the faith. .... (more)

My denomination—Seventh Day Baptist—holds that the Sabbath should be observed from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, the Biblical Sabbath, but would categorize that belief as important and correct but "non-essential," in the sense that those who disagree with us are not heretics and thus the doctrine belongs in category three of this taxonomy.

9/24  I read today that the quotation in the first paragraph above is not from Augustine but has often been erroneously attributed to him.

Doug Eaton, "4 Categories of Doctrinal Weight in Christian Theology," Fight of Faith, August 20, 2024.

"Every one that keepeth the sabbath..."

Sen. Joseph Lieberman died yesterday. The news is full of quotations from across the political spectrum, reflecting the respect in which he was held. David Klinghoffer, co-author of The Gift of Rest, writes of him:

Some qualities of a human being can only be captured by resorting to Yiddish. For Senator Joe Lieberman, who died much too young at age 82, the word is “edel.” Leo Rosten’s hilarious dictionary-like classic, The Joys of Yiddish, defines it as “gentle, sensitive, refined,” or “shy, modest, humble.” It rhymes with “cradle.”

Lieberman was an orthodox Jew. The Gift of Rest is about the Sabbath. These quotations are from the first chapter:

This book is for both Jews and non-Jews, whatever their personal religious observances may be, because the fourth commandment and its gift of Sabbath rest were given to all people. In fact, as we go along you’ll see that the Sabbath provides answers to the most difficult questions people of all faiths have asked themselves for generations: How did I get here? Does anyone care how I behave? What will happen to me after I die?

The prophet Isaiah taught beautifully about a future time when everyone will observe the Sabbath:

Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, every one that keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it. .... Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. (Isaiah 56:6–7)

Then in the concluding verses of his book, Isaiah pictures how it will be in that blessed future:

And it shall come to pass, that every new moon, and every Sabbath, shall all flesh come to bow down to the ground before Me, says the Lord. (Isaiah 66:23) ....

...[T]he Sabbath is not an all or nothing proposition. It offers to enrich your life and give you rest in direct proportion to how much of its spirit and practice you choose to incorporate into your life. But I warn you: a single taste of Sabbath can lead you to want more. ....

Many people have asked, “Why does the Sabbath day begin with the coming of night?” In our familiar weekday world, some view the day beginning at midnight. Others think of it as beginning at sunrise—a new day, a new sun. In Colonial times, many Americans followed the Jewish way of thinking on this. According to the historian Benson Bobrick, the Christian Sabbath was then regarded as beginning at sundown Saturday night. Some early American Christians also concluded their Sabbath as Jews customarily conclude theirs—at the appearance of three stars on Sunday evening. .... (the book at Amazon)

Joseph I. Lieberman and David Klinghoffer, The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath, Howard Books.

So you're a Baptist?

I started blogging here shortly after I retired from teaching in 2005, usually posting several times a week. Consequently, there is a lot of material that I at least once thought worth sharing. Every now and then I scroll through the posts identified with one of the tags I appended.  Today it was "Baptism" and one of the posts was a review of books defining "Baptist."

From 2011:

At Books & Culture, Mark Noll, in "So You're a Baptist," reviews two books about Baptist identity, concluding that the most significant thing the diverse groups known as "Baptists" have in common is our history.

.... They agree that Baptists should be considered offshoots of the Puritan movements that insisted on scriptura sola as the sole reliable basis for faithful Christianity and the most effective source of correction for the halfway reforms in the national Church of England. A very high view of biblical authority has remained central to almost all later Baptist movements, but even more distinctly Baptist was how this loyalty to Scripture was practiced. Baptists, that is, pushed the logic of "the priesthood of all believers" beyond where most of their fellows, even most of their Puritan peers, wanted to go. In their view, a properly functioning Christianity required not just diligence in following Scripture, but the personal and intentional commitment of each church member to practice that diligence. For Baptists, common Protestant teaching about the lordship or kingship of Christ was taken to mean that no intermediate authority should stand between God and the gathering of his people to worship and serve him.

.... These earliest Baptists were "General" because they believed in the potential efficacy of Christ's death for all humans. .... Before long, however, they were joined by "Particular" Baptists who maintained the era's standard Calvinist teaching that Christ died particularly for the elect rather than for humanity as a whole.

Within a generation from their founding, both "Generals" and "Particulars" would begin baptizing by immersion, the standard practice that has continued for Baptist churches around the world to this day. In this early period, adult baptism upon personal profession of faith was only partly a conclusion drawn from "the Bible alone." Even more, this approach to baptism represented a protest, as Mennonites and other Anabaptists also protested, against the idea of inherited or bestowed Christian identification symbolized by the traditional practice of infant baptism. To be a follower of Christ meant to commit oneself personally rather than to rely on the mediation of family, church, or a supposedly Christian society. Extensive biblical arguments for both baptism upon profession of faith and baptism by immersion soon appeared within Baptist ranks. But the broad pre-conviction underlying specifically baptismal practice was a positive vision of the self's individual responsibility under God and a negative vision of human institutions or traditions as distorting that personal relationship.

...[B]eyond the common approach to baptism itself, these prominent Baptist principles did not lead to a common theology, common church practices, or common attitudes to social engagement.

Almost inevitably, the very principles that Baptists shared made it difficult for Baptists to agree among themselves. And so within less than a century of organized Baptist existence, differences emerged in response to a number of questions that led to the formation of separate Baptist denominations: Was the atonement universal as Generals claimed or specific as Particulars urged? Should adults who were baptized also receive the laying on of hands? Should the day for public worship be the Sabbath/seventh day (Saturday) or the first day/Resurrection (Sunday)? Should local leaders accept the validity of adult baptism done elsewhere? Should they require the re-baptism of those who had received infant baptism? Should Baptist fellowships have confessions of faith? Should churches follow Christ's command literally to wash one another's feet? Should Baptists take part in politics or hold aloof? Should conferences of Baptist churches or leaders of those conferences be given any authority within local congregations? For each of these questions, and for many more that would come later, sincere believers were able to cite biblical chapter and verse that were completely convincing to themselves but that did not convince other Baptists. .... (more)

"Completely convincing to themselves" but unpersuasive to other Baptists — not a bad summary of Seventh Day Baptist efforts regarding the Sabbath.

So You're a Baptist— | Books and Culture

Misconstrued time

Within "Who Decides What Year It Is Anyhow?" comes a clear explanation of a one-time important change in the calendar:

Our current calendar, with its recognizable 12 months — one of them shorter than the rest — and a leap year every four years, takes its form from the Julian Calendar. Proposed by the famed Julius Caesar....

In the 16^th century, Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree that addressed a seemingly small problem with the Julian Calendar. The Julian Calendar assumed that the sun’s circuit is exactly 365.25 days (thus providing a leap year every four years). In actuality, the sun takes 365.2422 days to complete its path. While this differential — only 11 minutes or so — may seem too trivial to matter, those 11 minutes morphed the calendar after several centuries. The dates were straying farther away from the solar markers of time, such as the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. When Renaissance scholars took notice of this issue, they learned that the Julian Calendar was over-correcting by approximately eight days each millennium. ....

.... In the year 1582, Catholic Christendom hopped from October 4 to October 15 overnight to correct the languishing problem of misconstrued time. If you thought the calendar couldn’t get more confusing, you’re wrong! To make matters worse, many nations around the globe did not adopt the Gregorian Calendar until centuries after 1582. For hundreds of years, nations were operating ten calendar days apart. (Pity the historians who have to track such discrepancies.) Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden did not transition to the Gregorian calendar until 1700. Great Britain and the United States followed suit in 1752, and Eastern countries including China, Turkey, and Russia did not switch until the early 20^th-century.

For those of us concerned about a seventh-day Sabbath—Jews and some Christians—it should be noted that although dates were affected by the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, the weekly cycle was unaffected. If in 1582 Oct. 4 was a Thursday, the next day, Oct. 15, was still a Friday.

Kayla Bartsch, "Who Decides What Year It Is Anyhow?," National Review, December 31, 2023.

Remembrance, humility, and connection

From "Because I Said So":

.... Moses offers three critical ways to address the challenge of trusting in the divine: remembrance, humility, and connection. This nuanced understanding points to critical engagement as the foundation of obedience.

Let’s start with remembrance. Humans tend to have a short memory. We see this powerfully illustrated with the incident of the golden calf. Shortly after God commanded the people not to have other gods and not to make idols, the Israelites did both. So Moses spends a significant chunk of this Torah portion reviewing the miracles and lessons of the past, including the incident of the calf. He begins: “Remember the long way the Lord, your God, led you these 40 years in the desert, in order to afflict you, to test you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep God’s commandments or not.” (Deuteronomy 8:2). He wants the Israelites to remember the miraculous way they were cared for by God in the past, but also the mistakes that were made along the way.

Recalling this history might lead the Israelites to take their success for granted and assume that divine favor is assured. This is why Moses cautions the Israelites to practice humility. “Do not say in your heart, ‘Because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me to possess this land, and because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord drives them out from before you.’” (Deuteronomy 9:4) Moses here is speaking to the human tendency to attribute success to our own righteousness and to believe there is some deficit in those who do not succeed as we do. A stance of humility, the recognition that there is something beyond our own power, some cosmic alignment responsible for what we achieve (or fail to), is a preventative to succumbing to the arrogance of success.

Finally, we come to the heart of Moses’ teaching, his encouragement of the Israelites to stay close to the source of blessing: “You shall love the Lord, your God, keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments, all the days.” (Deuteronomy 11:1) This may be the most challenging aspect for us today — to act based on an ongoing personal connection with the divine. To help hone this skill, Moses issues a curious command to “circumcise the foreskin of your heart” (Deuteronomy 10:16). ....

The three levels of trust-building Moses describes bring the Israelites — and us — from “because I said so” to a greater understanding of why we should do so. .... (more)

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum, "Because I Said So," My Jewish Learning, August 5, 2023

We Believe....

Thomas Kidd has posted "Confessions of Faith and the Baptist Tradition" responding to Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, a Southern Baptist church that is in trouble with its denomination. Warren argues that Baptist “unity has always been based on a common mission, not a common confession.” Kidd pretty thoroughly refutes that contention: "The idea that Baptists have found unity in “mission” and not in confessions crumbles under an avalanche of historic evidence to the contrary."

Kidd notes what should be obvious:

Historically, Baptists have intuitively understood that confessions foster unity by setting up ecclesiological and doctrinal fences. The truth is, all churches use doctrinal tests to maintain denominational boundaries, whether they are written ones or not. For example, what would be the point of keeping a church in fellowship with a Baptist denomination if it rejected believer’s baptism? Or if its pastor was an agnostic? Would critics of confessions really say that we are obliged to maintain fellowship with churches regardless of what they believe?

All social, political, and religious groups have to set some limits, or they’d become incoherent and pointless. No one wants to join a group that is for nothing.

I belong to one of the older (albeit smaller) Baptist denominations. This is an early Seventh Day Baptist confession of belief:

Expose of Sentiments

1833, revised in 1852

Resolved: that this expose is not adopted as having any binding force in itself, but simply as an exhibition of the views generally held by the denomination.

We believe that there is one God. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, and of Jesus Christ his Son. We believe that there is a union existing between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that they are equally divine and equally entitled to our adoration.

We believe that "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life" That he took on Him our nature, and was born of the Virgin Mary; that He offered Himself a sacrifice for sin; that He suffered death upon the cross, was buried, and at the expiration of three days and three nights He rose from the dead; that He ascended to the right hand of God, and is the Mediator between God and Man—from whence He will come to judge and reward every man according to the deeds done in the body.

We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are given by inspiration, and contain the whole of God's revealed will, and that they are the only infallible guide to our faith and duty.

We believe man was made upright and good, and had ability to remain so; but that through temptation, he was induced to violate the law of God, and thus fell from his uprightness, and came under the curse of the law, and became a subject of death; and that all his posterity have inherited from him depravity and death. We believe that the depravity of man is in his will and affections, and that it is such as unfits him for the Kingdom of God, or the society of holy beings, and disinclines him to come to Christ, or receive his truth.

We believe that by the humiliations and sufferings of Christ, he made an atonement, and became the justification for the sins of the whole world; but that the nature or character of this atonement is such as not to admit of justification without faith, or salvation without holiness. We believe that regeneration is essential to salvation; that it consists in a renovation of the heart, —hatred to sin and love to God; and that it produces a reformation of life, in whatever is known to be sinful, and a willing conformity to the authority and precepts of Christ.

As to good works, we believe that they are not the ground of a believer's hope; but that they are fruit essential to a justified state, and necessary as evidence of the new birth.

We believe that there will be a general resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.

We believe that a gospel church is composed of such persons, and such only, as have given satisfactory evidence of regeneration and have submitted to gospel baptism.

We believe that Christian Baptism is the immersion in water, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of a believer in Christ, upon the profession of the gospel faith, and that no other water baptism is valid.

We believe that there will be a day of judgment for both the righteous and the wicked, and that Jesus Christ shall judge every man according to his works.

We believe that the righteous will be admitted into life eternal, and that the wicked shall receive eternal damnation.

We believe that the law of God, contained in the Decalogue, and recorded in the 20^th chapter of Exodus, to be morally and religiously binding upon all mankind.

We believe it is the duty of all men, and especially the Church of God, to observe religiously the seventh day of the week as commanded in the fourth precept of the Decalogue, [which in common with other days of the week, scripturally commences and ends with sunset].

We believe it is the duty of all the members of the church to commemorate the sufferings of Christ, in partaking of the Lord's Supper, as often as the church shall deem it expedient, and their circumstances admit. As we deem it unscriptural to admit, to the membership of the church, any person who does not yield obedience to the commandments of God, and the institutions of the gospel, or who would be a subject of church discipline, were he a member of the church, so we deem it equally improper to receive such at the Lord's table, or to partake with them of the Lord's Supper.

The current Seventh Day Baptist "Statement of Belief" can be found here.

Sabbath

On Thursday (June 1) PBS will broadcast a two-hour documentary called "Sabbath."

From The Washington Post:

In his book The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that Jews did not build great cathedrals into space. Their great accomplishment was a cathedral in time — the Shabbat, or 24-hour period of rest.

“Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time,” Heschel wrote.

That cathedral in time is part of the filmmaker Martin Doblmeier’s latest documentary, a two-part program called “Sabbath.” ....

As in his previous documentaries, Doblmeier has recruited an A-list of theologians, scholars and clergy to offer insights historical, theological and sociological. ....

The film consists of travels to various religious communities to illustrate their Sabbath practices. The places visited include the headquarters of Chabad, the Hasidic sect in Crown Heights, Brooklyn; a Seventh-day Adventist church in Loma Linda, Calif.; and the predominantly African American Eastern Star Church led by the Indianapolis pastor Jeffrey A. Johnson. .... (more, but probably requiring a subscription)

Free exercise

Ever since the 17^th century members of my denomination have had to navigate issues engaged by this upcoming US Supreme Court case:

Should American employees be forced to choose between making a living and freely exercising their religious beliefs? That is the question the Supreme Court is considering in Groff v. DeJoy.

On Tuesday, a diverse group submitted amicus briefs urging the court to answer that question with a resounding “no.” More than 30 briefs were filed on behalf of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Mormons, Muslims, Seventh-day Adventists, Sikhs, Zionists, religious liberty and employment law scholars, medical professionals, nonprofit organizations, states, and members of Congress, among others.

Groff involves United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier Gerald Groff, a Christian, who holds uncontested sincere religious beliefs about resting, worshiping, and not working on his Sunday Sabbath. After he joined USPS in 2012, USPS contracted with Amazon in 2013 to provide mail deliveries on Sundays. Initially, USPS accommodated Groff’s Sunday Sabbath observance but later required him to work Sundays.

In accordance with his religious beliefs, Groff refused to work when he was scheduled on his Sunday Sabbath, resulting in progressive disciplinary actions by USPS. Realizing his termination was imminent, Groff resigned in 2019, leading to this religious discrimination lawsuit.

This case places the future of workplace religious accommodation rights in the hands of the Supreme Court. .... (more)

Rachel N. Morrison, "No One Should Be Forced To Choose Between His Faith And His Paycheck," The Federalist, March 6, 2023.

The deepest and richest worship

Kevin DeYoung on "Worship as Covenant Renewal":

.... The historic liturgy of the Christian church did not originate in evangelicalism, or in the Reformation, or in Europe. It grew out of Old Testament (and then New Testament) assumptions about what it meant for God’s people to gather and renew the covenant. The corporate gathering of God’s people is not mainly for community or for fellowship or for moral instruction, though all of these are present. “We gather each Lord’s Day,” Mike Horton reminds us, “not merely out of habit, social custom, or felt needs but because God has chosen this weekly festival as a foretaste of the everlasting Sabbath day that will be enjoyed fully at the marriage supper of the Lamb. God has called us out of the world and into his marvelous light: That is why we gather” (A Better Way, 24). Every Sunday, we come to worship our covenant-making God, be reminded of his covenant promises, and once again renew our covenant commitment. The deepest and richest and most biblical worship will have a liturgy that reflects these ancient, and continuing, realities. (more)

Kevin DeYoung, Worship as Covenant Renewal

Deliberate discipleship

From "In 2022, Let’s Take T.S. Eliot’s Advice":

.... “The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without,” Eliot said. So, how are we building? ....

In this state of communal disrepair, Eliot advised, “The good man is the builder, if he build what is good.” His words echo James 2’s contention that faith without works is dead (v. 26), that it’s possible to have right beliefs without acting in service to God and others. Eliot warns us against relying on the work of past generations and doing nothing to shore it up.

Eliot says we can learn to build well from “things that are now being done, / And some of the things that were long ago done,” and from “the work of the humble.” ....

As for things “long ago done,” church history is a wealth of wisdom and warning. One hopeful evangelical trend is renewed interest in the liturgical calendar. ....

Other things built long ago that would aid our building: formalized catechism, memorization of Scripture, and habits of Sabbath. With so many other claims on our attention, we can’t expect to “be made new in the attitude of [our] minds” by social osmosis (Eph. 4:23). We need to dust off these tools of deliberate discipleship for new use. .... (more)

"In 2022, Let’s Take T.S. Eliot’s Advice," Christianity Today, Nov. 22, 2021.

"Putting away all earthly anxieties..."

A COLLECT FOR SABBATH REST Saturday

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, 2019, ACNA.

Be a teacher

Reviewing some other things of mine that appeared in The Sabbath Recorder:

 

In the film of Robert Bolt’s play, "A Man for All Seasons," a young friend asks Thomas More for a place at Court. More tells Richard Rich that he won’t give him what he wants but that he may have another position for him:

Rich: What post?
More: At the new school.
Rich: A teacher! [….]
More: Why not be a teacher? You'd be a fine teacher. Perhaps a great one.
Rich: lf I was, who would know it?
More: You! Your pupils. Your friends. God. Not a bad public, that.

One of the great affirmations of the Protestant Reformation was the “priesthood of all believers” and along with that the realization that the idea of vocation applied to all believers, not just those ordained to holy orders. Our lives can’t be compartmentalized. Our work — how we earn our living — is in service to God, just as every other aspect of life. Whether we gain wide acclaim is irrelevant. What matters is whether we are faithful. Who will know? “God. Not a bad public, that.”

I didn’t come to that realization right away. For as long as I can remember I had planned to be a teacher, but because it was something I thought I could do well that would provide me with a living, not as a calling. In fact I became a public school teacher rather by default because I feared the kind of debt I would incur by continuing in graduate school. In 1970 I put out my credentials (teachers were in short supply then) and was contacted by a principal in Madison. I taught in that school district — secondary history and political science — for thirty-five years.

I was a mediocre teacher when I started, making serious mistakes — especially in disciplining students — but I learned from my mistakes and eventually achieved a certain competence. I learned very little of value in the education courses I was required to take. Teaching is as much an art as a skill and perfecting the art is largely a matter of trial and error. Each teacher needs to discover the style that works for him or her. I always told my student teachers to commit to at least four or five years before deciding they couldn’t do it.

What makes a good public school teacher? You need to like kids and love your subject matter. Most students will do just about anything a teacher asks if they believe the teacher cares about them, knows what he is talking about and teaches it well. That means knowing your subject thoroughly, and that means reading a lot. The easiest way to earn the contempt of adolescents is to pretend to know more than you do. The best teachers are those who can convey what is most important clearly and interestingly — and that is almost impossible if you are always operating at or close to the limit of your knowledge. Otherwise what makes a good teacher is what makes any good person: integrity, the willingness to admit error, intolerance of cruelty, a sense of proportion and good humor, meeting your commitments and obligations punctually, “doing unto others…,” etc.

These days, in the public schools, there is much less opportunity for Christian teachers to talk freely about our faith than was true even a few decades ago. Nevertheless, I found, at least in high school, that if the subject came up naturally as part of the curriculum or in student initiated discussion, it was possible if the subject was approached descriptively, if disagreement could be freely expressed, and nobody felt pressured. The most important witness a Christian teacher can make in a classroom, though, is behavior consistent with belief. For high school students there is no greater sin an adult can commit than seeming to be hypocritical.

“Be a teacher.” It is an honorable profession. And your Sabbaths will almost always be free.

Sabbath

From Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath:

He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

One eternal day

J.C. Ryle:

The day is coming when there shall be a congregation that shall never break up, and a Sabbath that shall never end, a song of praise that shall never cease, and an assembly that shall never be dispersed. In that assembly shall be found all who have ‘worshiped God in spirit’ upon earth. If we are such, we shall be there.

Here we often worship God with a deep sense of weakness, corruption, and infirmity. There, at last, we shall be able, with a renewed body, to serve Him without weariness, and to attend on Him without distraction.

Here, at our very best, we see through a glass darkly, and know the Lord Jesus Christ most imperfectly. It is our grief that we do not know Him better and love Him more.

There, freed from all the dross and defilement of indwelling sin, we shall see Jesus as we have been seen, and know as we have been known. Surely, if faith has been sweet and peace-giving, sight will be far better.

Here we have often found it hard to worship God joyfully, by reason of the sorrows and cares of this world. Tears over the graves of those we loved have often made it hard to sing praise. Crushed hopes and family sorrows have sometimes made us hang our harps on the willows.

There every tear shall be dried, every saint who has fallen asleep in Christ shall meet us once more, and every hard thing in our life-journey shall be made clear and plain as the sun at noon-day.

Here we have often felt that we stand comparatively alone, and that even in God’s house the real spiritual worshipers are comparatively few.

There we shall at length see a multitude of brethren and sisters that no man can number, all of one heart and one mind, all free from blemishes, weaknesses, and infirmities, all rejoicing in one Saviour, and all prepared to spend an eternity in His praise. We shall have worshiping companions enough in heaven.

Armed with such hopes as these, let us lift up our hearts and look forward! The time is very short. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us worship on, pray on, praise on, and read on.

Let us contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and resist manfully every effort to spoil Scriptural worship. Let us strive earnestly to hand down the light of Gospel worship to our children’s children.

Yet a little time and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Blessed in that day will be those, and those only, who are found true worshipers, ‘worshipers in spirit and truth!'”

J.C. Ryle, “Worship” in Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion, London: William Hunt and Company, 1885.

No permission needed

From R. Albert Mohler Jr. on "Why I Am a Baptist" in First Things:

.... Every great movement probably begins in an argument of some sort, and the Baptists emerged in the context of an argument that was intense, significant, and sometimes deadly. Luther had started it. The Calvinists believed he had not taken it far enough. The English Puritans likewise became convinced that the moderately reforming Church of England was not taking the argument far enough. The Separatists (who would include Congregationalists and Presbyterians) believed that the Puritans who remained in the Church of England were not taking it far enough. The Baptists then separated from the Separatists because they were not taking it far enough. Since then, Baptists have not stopped arguing. They often argue among themselves, but more urgently, they argue for the necessity of conversion, for the believers’ church, for the baptism of believers alone, and for liberty of conscience. ....

In 1646, Baptist churches in London defined saving faith in these terms:

Faith is the gift of God, wrought in the hearts of the elect by the Spirit of God; by which faith they come to know and believe the truth of the Scriptures, and the excellency of them above all other writings, and all things in the world, as they hold forth the glory of God in his attributes, the excellency of Christ in his nature and offices, and of the power and fulness of the Spirit in his workings and operations; and so are enabled to cast their souls upon this truth thus believed.

Such saving faith, the Baptists continued, “is ordinarily begotten by the preaching of the gospel, or word of Christ.” When you find real Baptists, you will find the preaching of the gospel—the declaration of the great good news that salvation and the forgiveness of sins are bestowed upon all who hear the word of Christ and believe, who rest from their labors to make themselves worthy of salvation and by grace through faith receive the mercy of God, by the merits of Christ alone. ....

As others have noted, the Baptists have not been ardent ecumenists. But they have always recognized that there are true Christians in other churches and communions. They have believed that no entity that lacks the preaching of the gospel is any church at all, and that even some churches that preach the gospel are, measured by the New Testament, wrongly ordered. Baptists are not Baptists for nothing.

The rightly ordered church as a gathered and covenanted visible assembly of the saints exercises a comprehensive gospel ministry. The Word of God is preached, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are observed, church discipline is applied, and the congregation advances the gospel through missions and evangelism.

The practice of baptizing only those persons who personally profess faith in Christ became the defining issue for Baptists. Reading the New Testament, they concluded that infant baptism was no real baptism and that baptism, like the Lord’s Supper, was not a sacrament but an ordinance—an act commanded by Christ. The new believer, having given evidence of saving faith and a commitment to follow Christ, is baptized into the fellowship of the church, with the waters of baptism the context for the believer’s profession of faith. Baptism is also the ordinance of entry into the membership and fellowship of the congregation. ....

I believe that Baptists have something important—even crucial—to add to the Christian tradition and to strengthen Christian witness in the world today. Baptists are often a noisy part of the Body of Christ, but I hope we are a needed part as well.

In any event, don’t expect us to ask permission. Put us in jail, take away our earthly goods, do your worst—we will not ask permission from the ­powers that be. Whatever happens in the unfolding of ­history, we will still be preaching the gospel, ­plunging believers under water, telling people about Jesus, and singing the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

As a young man, I heard an old Baptist say, “I was Baptist born and Baptist bred, and when I am old, I’ll be Baptist dead.” At the time, I thought these words trite, tribal, and woefully lacking in theology. Now, in my seventh decade of life, I hear them a bit differently, mixing gratitude to the church with ­defiance of the world. Given the way our world is going, I am ready to stand with that old Baptist, now long gone, and pledge to be faithfully Baptist, faithfully Christian, even unto death. No earthly permission needed. (much more)

"...Baptists then separated from the Separatists because they were not taking it far enough." Seventh Day Baptists would argue that Baptists stopped just a little bit too soon.

Why I Am a Baptist by R. Albert Mohler Jr. | Articles | First Things

"Rest and see, see and love, love and praise"

In a post at his blog, Snakes and Ladders, Alan Jacobs excerpted a passage from the final chapter of Augustine's City of God, "Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath." From that chapter, the passage Jacobs quoted:

Suffice it to say that the seventh [age] shall be our Sabbath, which shall be brought to a close, not by an evening, but by the Lord's day, as an eighth and eternal day, consecrated by the resurrection of Christ, and prefiguring the eternal repose not only of the spirit, but also of the body. There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end. For what other end do we propose to ourselves than to attain to the kingdom of which there is no end?

Tranquility, serenity, peace and repose

Rev Herbert E. Saunders on Sabbath rest:

"Six days of labor will feed and clothe the body; Sabbath labor will starve the soul." (AJC Bond) The underlying principle and God-ordained purpose of the Sabbath is rest. Ordained at creation for God's own rest, it remains therefore as a rest day for the people of God. The idea of rest has high Biblical authority, and it means far more than just physical relaxation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes : "In the Bible 'rest' really means more than 'having a rest.' It means rest after the work is accomplished, it means completion, it means the perfection and peace of God in which the world rests, it means transformation, it means turning our eyes absolutely upon God's being God and towards worshipping him." And Heschel writes: "'Menuha' which we usually render with 'rest' means here much more than withdrawal from labor and exertion, more than freedom from toil, strain or activity of any kind. 'Menuha' is not a negative concept but something real and intrinsically positive...it took a special act of creation to bring it into being, ...the universe would be incomplete without it. What was created on the seventh day? Tranquility, serenity, peace and repose." This idea of the Sabbath is meaningful to modern man. Although leisure time is expanding, and the work-week is gradually diminishing, there is a need for this consecrated idea of rest—this act of putting aside one day for the unique refreshment of one's body and soul. Consecrated rest, thus understood, demands also consecrated work—six days of worldly toil that give one the satisfaction of having completed his assigned task in God's plan. The Sabbath gives time for one to reflect on the accomplishments of his work and to glory in their completion. ....

Herbert E. Saunders, The Sabbath: Symbol of Creation and Re-creation, American Sabbath Tract Society, Plainfield, N.J., 1970.

“He who marries the spirit of the age will soon find himself a widower.”

If this guy is right "contemporary" worship isn't contemporary anymore.

...[O]nly 27 percent of millennials attend religious services weekly (boomers claim a rate of 38 percent; their parents, 51 percent).

One of the reasons they don’t go to church seems to be a disaffection with one of the most popular worship styles going now—a style much embraced by their parents and, especially, by their grandparents, the baby boomers.

That style is contemporary worship, as in praise bands and rock musicians, generic auditoriums with fixed theater seating or big boxy rooms with stackable church chairs and worship screens. This worship style is frequently found shallow and trendy, caught up in innovation and cultural conformity. The theology attached to it is often found wanting for the same reasons—it lacks spiritual gravitas, it is grounded in what is new and culturally relevant. ....

Is it too much to suggest that the old ways of doing “church” are the better ways? That a worship style that has prospered for many centuries has something theologically substantial, something religiously solid, to offer a generation that finds itself floundering among the flotsam and jetsam of religious ephemera and trendiness? ....

.... A Barna survey from 2014 found that millennials were favorably disposed to traditional sanctuaries. Of four options presented to persons aged 18 to 29, a plurality (44 percent) chose a traditional worship space, as opposed to the semicircular megachurch mode or a more straightforward theater-seating mode. Seventy percent preferred an unambiguous Christian chancel arrangement, largely traditional with an altar and a cross/crucifix on the back wall. Commented the researchers on the chancel setting: “These patterns illustrate most Millennials’ overall preference for a straightforward, overtly Christian style of imagery—as long as it doesn’t look too institutional or corporate. Not only do such settings physically direct one’s attention to the divine, they also provide a rich context of church history as the backdrop for worship.” ....

We as humans need ceremony. We are comforted by ritual. Every worship service of every ilk is built on form, on repeated acts. From the glitziest arena church to the little brown church in the dale, a worship service is constructed after a pattern that is repeated, sometimes identically, week in and week out. Everybody does liturgy. Why not return to a ritual that’s been around the spiritual block, that’s been tested by generations of fellow believers, that’s been known and authenticated as an effective transmitter of saving faith, that connects you to generations of Christians, to your grandparents and their grandparents and believers back to Martin Luther and maybe even Thomas Aquinas? You’re going to do liturgy anyway. Why not make it the real thing? (more)

Millennials Need Time-Tested Traditional Churches | RealClearReligion

Sabbath

Prager is very good on the 4^th Commandment (if you don't see the embed below, the YouTube link is https://youtu.be/GKsvLpJxVTA) :

Thank you, Ralph Mackintosh, for calling this to my attention.